The Larger Truth Lie

The recent death of Jordan Neely has me thinking once again about the power of narratives in our current culture.  So many people willingly allow themselves to jump to conclusions their predetermined narrative creates. 

Although much has been written about our narrative driven world (some of my prior thoughts), I still find it an important topic to discuss and understand.  Narratives are the frameworks we use to interpret and make sense of our world and the events that happen along the way.  They contain accepted beliefs about the context of those events, along with assumptions we hold about those involved.  Narratives allow us to fill in the holes and gaps of stories we may not understand or have sufficient evidence.  They often contain elements of truth or an appearance of truth, which make them more appealing.  Most of the time, however, narratives are dismissive or  a rationalization of inconvenient truths or facts.

Narratives are also precisely human.  We all have them.  We have personal narratives that shape our perspective and help establish our conception of our identity and who we are.  We also have broader narratives we share collectively with our ideological peers.   Let's take a look at common Republican and Democrat narratives (these are just some examples):

Elitist, progressive, liberals are trying to eliminate personal freedom and liberties to impose secular, intellectual, and woke policies through powerful government agencies

The issues facing America are a result of oppressions and injustices imposed by a largely white, Christian, male dominated society and supported by an unfair capitalistic economic system.  

So, when any event happens both sides retreat to their narratives.  There is very little in the way of an attempt to gather evidence, analyze it, scrutinize it and develop an objective opinion.  Rather, we just allow our narrative to process the information to make it fit into the preconceived notion our narrative created.  The examples are long and exhaustive...Just look how partisans understood the following: the pandemic, vaccinations, school shootings, Jussie Smollett, Coventry Catholic, Hunter Biden, transgenderism, Russiagate, Kavanaugh, Hunter's laptop, January 6 etc...Every single one of these stories were explained through a partisan narrative that often left out or distorted contrarian elements that would have showed the narrative to be wrong.   

Narratives are certainly not new, humans have been using them for time immemorial.  What is new (relatively speaking), is the mechanisms used to craft, push and sustain our narratives. Cable television, social media, and the algorithm, have all made narrative craft a much more menacing issue for our culture.  Moreover, the increased polarization due to these new mechanisms make narratives more important and incentivize a death grip hold on narratives.  As both sides become more radicalized and reactionary to each other, the more potent the narrative becomes.  The compounding nature creates a vicious cycle.

Obviously, the victim of the narrative is the truth and a means to objectively determine it.  And with no real desire to distinguish or identify the truth, we are playing a dangerous and perhaps catastrophic game with our culture. 

Narratives usually have elements of truth.  Most are not completely outlandish conspiracies.  However, narratives become more compelling when, in fact, the truth of the events do fit the held narrative.  When that happens, the narrative increases its gravitational pull on its adherents.  So much so that when the truth of the events don't conform to the narrative, folks ignore obvious facts, betray the truth, and commit themselves to their priors.

With that being said, I think there is an aspect of this whole narrative business that needs to be exposed.  Its what I call the "larger truth" lie.  Essentially it is belief that there is a  larger, fundamentally more important truth.  It is a truth that  is so important, it needs to be guarded and protected at all costs. Its importance often compels people to utilize a number of tactics in service of this most noble truth.  Among the more common tactics is a blatant disregard for any contradictory facts.  Many times these facts are completely ignored, other times they are given cursory time and attention, usually buried deep below a word salad of academic jargon.  In many cases, people will use "smaller" lies in service of maintaining the "larger truth."  It is an "ends justify the means" approach.  Another wildly used tactic is the use of the "expert".  Experts are brought in to refute the contradictory facts, not necessarily with facts, but with their credentials, somehow waving a magic wand that provides an explanation in the face condemning evidence that says otherwise.  The whole pandemic was essentially, "I am a scientist so you have to believe me!" 

In reality, the "larger truth" is not really truth at all, it is just another narrative dressed up in truthiness.  It is a rhetorical device used to prevent society from objectively identifying the truth and fully understanding the issue.  Lets look at some examples...

Climate Change is one of the worst offenders of the larger truth lie. Environmentalists claim that the "larger truth" is that manmade climate change is an existential threat and crisis to all life on earth and we are near the beginning of the end if we don't take drastic action.  Every weather event is framed in the climate change hysterics, even if there is no scientific way to measure how much climate change played a role.  Any contradictory data that shows the catastrophe may not be quite so catastrophic is almost always ignored. When it is not ignored, it is dismissed by the chorus of voices screaming "scientific consensus." Read Michael Chrichton's State of Fear, or check out Bjorn Lomberg, or Alex Epstein.

Race, racism, and white supremacy might be the worst perpetrator of the the larger truth lie.  The larger truth claim is that people of color in the US are systemically and actively  discriminated against by a society built on white supremacy.  Every data point or anecdotal event that happens to a person of color is interpreted through this narrative.  Again, like climate change, any evidence that shows this claim to be not true is hidden or ignored.  Only those events that seem to make the claim true are broadcast nationally.  For example, any event where a person of color is a victim of some sort of violent act at the hands of a white person, it is on the non stop news cycle.  The death of Jordan Neely, while tragic, became a national story because it supports the "larger truth" of a certain political party.    However, when a person of color is the suspect, the news barely blinks, especially if the victim is another person of color.  Vast majority of Americans know who George Floyd is, but ask how many know who Tyre Nichols is.

Gender and LGBTQ issues are handled with similar tactics as the racial issues,  

The pandemic and all of the surrounding context is a great example of the tactics of the "larger truth" lie.  The larger truth was that the pandemic was so dangerous for everyone that drastic measure had to be taken to prevent deaths.  As we now can see, much of the pandemic hysterics were exactly that...hysterics.  Masking, vaccinations, school closures, and more were all in service of this "larger truth," despite evidence saying other wise.  People were silenced, cancelled, ostracized and demonized if they challenges this "larger truth."  

The problem is that a larger truth should be able to stand on its own merits and the fact that it is the truth.  If you have lie, conceal, or distort facts to protect a "truth", I highly doubt you have a "larger truth".  In reality you have a narrative that you desperately want to be true.  You want to force that version of the truth on others for your own reasons.  In doing so, we create a culture and society that cannot distinguish truth from lies, fact from fiction, and real from fake.  This inability to do so, leaves everyone more cynical, more jaded and more prone to conspiratorial thinking.  

The authentic larger truth is that almost all of the issues that employ the "larger truth" lie tend to be very complex issues that cannot be stripped down to an all encompassing truth.  When one claims they have a larger truth, your job will be to scrutinize and analyze their claims.  Pay close attention to their response to contradictory evidence.  Here are some tell telltale signs:

• Refusal to engage in debate dialogue.  Many times they will just yell, scream, or repeat answers over and over again.  Often they will make the claim that engaging in debate is "platforming" or "legitimizing" hate, intolerance, bigotry, violence, environmental degradation, etc...
• Refusal to be transparent.  Anytime someone doesn't want to disclose information, it is obvious they know that information will puncture their "larger truth"
• Reliance on consensus or expert opinion.  When one claims the evidence of a larger truth is the existence of a "consensus" of experts but they cannot, themselves, speak to any specificity of the evidence, chances are their "larger truth" is not the truth.  Much of the transgender debate and environmentalism suffers from this kind of tactic.  When cornered, the only way out is to claim "science" is on their side

Actual larger truths do exist.  As do exceptions.  But legitimate truths do not fear scrutiny and can withstand the exceptions or nuance.  Narratives, on the other hand, are often like the middle school bully...full of bravado and certainty until punched in the face...